NL Notes: Hellweg, Cuddyer, Cubs, Espinosa

Fireballing Brewers prospect Johnny Hellweg, 25, has been diagnosed with a torn UCL and is headed to visit Dr. James Andrews, reports MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy. Hellweg, the club’s 7th overall prospect in the eyes of MLB.com, has been working at Triple-A after briefly reaching the bigs last year with Milwaukee. He put up a 6.75 ERA in 30 2/3 big league frames in 2013, but had a 3.14 mark in 131 2/3 minor league innings (albeit with 6.4 K/9 against 5.7 BB/9).

Here’s more from the National League:

Michael Cuddyer and the Rockies are in no rush to consider a new deal, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Cuddyer, 35, is set to complete his three-year, $31.5MM deal this season, and says he hopes to play two or three more seasons. But he is planning to finish out his contract and consider his options down the line.

The Cubs plan to take the best player available with the fourth overall pick in the upcoming amateur draft, reports Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. Though the team is stocked with well-regarded field prospects, and somewhat less flush with young arms, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein says they will “take the best player, regardless of position,” explaining that he will look to make “the best investment, the best bet on that player’s career.” The team is hopeful of building pitching depth from this year’s amateur pool, even if that does not come through the first choice. “There’s tremendous depth in this class,” said Epstein. “It’s more depth than elite, per se. But we should be coming out with a good pitching haul when it’s said and done.”

Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa is in the midst of a bounce-back campaign, writes Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. After struggling mightily last year, and reportedly drawing significant trade interest from teams looking to take a chance on a turnaround for the 26-year-old switch-hitter, Espinosa is off to a .273/.333/.455 start through his first 59 plate appearances. He has taken over as the regular at second, with Anthony Rendon shifting to third while Ryan Zimmerman is on the DL. Espinosa’s rough 2013 was not without its benefits for the Nats, as his demotion allowed the team to pause his service clock: with just 2.113 years entering this season, Espinosa will not be eligible for free agency until 2018.

I think you should usually take the best player anyways. You can get into a sticky situation when you are trying to draft to fill a need. Take the player you think will work out, so many prospects wash out that you don’t need to risk them on someone you don’t think was best, but fit your position. Bryant looks really good, but many prospects will take 3+ years to make it to the majors and many also end up moving positions, that it’s really hard to draft for your need.

I completely agree in baseball. It is kind of weird how in most other sports, kids out of college (and sometimes even out of HS) can have a huge impact at the big state of their given sport. But with baseball, it’s almost true that every player (with exceptions of course) take a few seasons of fine tuning things.

It probably will be. Between Rodon, Aiken, Hoffman, Kolek, Beede and a few others, it sure looks like the top players in this draft are all pitchers. There is still a chance the Cubs go with Jackson, though. They’ve scouted him extensively, and he reportedly looked quite impressive during his visit to Wrigley.

The Rockies’ have a lot of leverage with Cuddyer. If he has a pretty good year, he’ll get the QO. No reason to extend him now. They’ll likely want to negotiate a 2-3 year deal for him before that’s offered though.

He’s 35 so 36 next season. If the QO is $15mil next year, that’s probably too much to offer and a pretty safe bet that Cuddy would take it. If he has another big season this year, I’d definitely talk extension but otherwise, it would be fine to let Cuddy test the market.

Tough news for the hard throwing but command challenged Hellweg. From Brewer perspective though, losing your 9th or 10th guy on the starter depth chart, is a lot better than what many teams are dealing with. Maybe it is their year.

I think the best bet is to stockpile talent, provided you’re not loading your team at one or two positions. Ideally, the Cubs take a pitcher, but the MLB draft is unlike drafts in the other major pro sports, in which it is much easier to predict value at a particular draft slot.

I don’t think Cub fans need to worry this year. Currently BBA’s top 15 has 12 pitchers, two OF’s and a SS. The Cubs are not taking Nick Gordon SS at #4 even if they think he’s BPA, and I’m not entirely sure C/OF Alex Jackson will even make it to #4.

Theo would have to go outta his way not to take a pitcher with 1.04 this year.

In this year’s draft, yes, it would be hard for Theo and Co. to not take a pitcher with the 4th pick. Unlike last year’s draft, this year’s draft will likely not see more than half of the first 15, 16 picks be position players. However, there are a few guys like Gettys, Zimmer and more than likely, Alex Jackson, who could be at least remotely appealing to the Cubs. With that said, I believe the Cubs will ultimately take a pitcher at #4.

Dr. Andrews does not have a monthly salary with every MLB organization out there. I’m pretty sure he gets paid per surgery. A TJ surgery is upward 20K. Sure there costs associated with it but I’m sure Dr. A pockets nice money on every procedure